Keeper's Toll News

Hi Everyone,

Version 0.5.22 is Live, and includes a new Curse, a bunch of bug fixes and QoL improvements to the game.

[h2]Castle Usvit[/h2]

Our #1 priority right now is focusing on Castle Usvit. We're working constantly on the art creation and design, and we've also coded one of the bosses already. Once we finish the tile set for the scene we will showcase a bunch of the scenery and characters to give you a preview of things to come. Expect a big Art update in the coming weeks.

[h2]Fighter Class[/h2]

We've started working on the Fighter, and we're taking a lot of player feedback into account for the design of this character. He's going to be very unique and extremely fun to play, with his fast, multi directional attacks and targeting and combo systems. Much more on this later, but we're excited to start working on him. Expect more updates in the coming weeks as well.

[h2]Updated Environments Coming Soon![/h2]

In the coming weeks we'll also be adding more life to the existing environments offering more destructibles and objects to interact with. Below is some early work on some wagons, carts, house remains and a well for Linden Forest.





[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]

- NEW: Curse - Frostveil - Idea by community member DJezze

- Challenge Event; Added a shadow, modified color and added a rune effect to the platform

- Randomized the spawn times for the Challenge Altar and Cursed Altar Events

- Bug Fix: Elites should properly spawn and enter challenge circles at all times when the event is triggered

- Bug Fix: Elite Outlines setting will now save properly

- Bug Fix: Flesh Golem Damage Circles will now deactivate when he dies if he's casting during death

- Bug Fix: Cursed Elite enemies will now toggle outlines

- Bug Fix: Summoned Druids of Warden Grainloch now play death dissolve animation on death

- Bug Fix: Tree Stump Turret shadow is now immediately deactivated on death

- Bug Fix: Movement speed will be properly reset to boosted speed if powerup was active before becoming slowed by an enemy

- Bug Fix: Challenge Event should now always spawn a cursed elite to complete the challenge

- Bug Fix: Pet Rock will no longer set off Ranger Traps

- Bug Fix: Ranger Traps will no longer be set off by anything but enemies

- Bug Fix: Pet Rock will no longer attempt to cache an invalid reference to a boss until it exists

- Added more distance and spawn variation between altars, challenge circles and the Merchant

- Modified the treasure chest hitbox setup

- Updated Credits to include community member designs

- Added a Total Souls Collected counter to the Options Menu. Eventually this will be removed as we will be adding a stats/achievements menu, but just needed to plug it somehwere for now

- Added a shadow to Likho, the Merchant

- Code refactoring


As always, thank you for your support. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or feedback, please get in touch with us or leave a comment in this thread. We always like to chat and appreciate you all for being with us as we continue our development journey with Soul Survivors.

Stingbot

Found a minor bug w/ Spore King spawn code for his event. Fixed it and also toned down his mine field a little bit.

Hi Everyone,

We have some fun new features in this week's build, including 2 new events. Jump into Linden Forest and check out some new stuff!

The Spore King makes his first appearance in the game, but you won't get to battle it out with him until later in development when we add in Hard Mode (name TBD).



Discover these mysterious circles and see if you have what it takes to win the challenge!



[h2]Castle Usvit Update[/h2]

Our main focus has shifted to developing Castle Usvit, so we're working very hard on this right now. We will have more to share on this environment soon. Each week we will share some progress updates. There's lots being worked on right now. Castle Usvit is the largest area of the game, and also contains the most content. It will be introduced when we reach version 0.6.0 of the game.

There's lots of other exciting news we'll be announcing in the coming weeks, so stay posted for more updates!

[h2]Curses[/h2]

We have created a new thread in the forums for Curses. Curses will continue to become a more important part of the game as we continue deeper into development. If anyone would like to contribute ideas to Curses we encourage you to do so. We will have a community credits section added within the game and will display your name if your idea is selected and implemented into the game. The thread is located here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2002220/discussions/0/3810658408032922878/

[h2]Items[/h2]

We will continue to add more common and uncommon items to the Merchant's Inventory. If you would like to contribute ideas for fun items to be added to the game, you can do so here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2002220/discussions/0/3802777561344234382/

[h2]Full Patch Notes for Build 0.5.19[/h2]

- NEW - Cursed Events. Interact with a mysterious circle and see what happens

- NEW - Meet the Spore King. Random event in Linden Forest

- NEW - Curse added to Linden Forest: Deathcaps

- Bogatyr: Modified Ironclad Passive Skill. Completely new skill focusing on health to damage/def boosts offering a fun playstyle

- Killing Invader Lord Cerveris will now reward you with an item

- Class Passive Skill Icons are now displayed with ranks on the Pause Menu

- UI: adjusted the positioning of all item icons in the pause menu

- UI: Added a 1/2 second delay on input detection when level up UI opens, to prevent accidentally selecting an ability if you are spamming Enter/Confirm

- UI: Modified passive skill descriptions for various abilities

- Souls and environment props should no longer spawn in very close proximity to the player on level start

- Options: Added a toggle to display Elite Sprite Outlines

- Ranger: Revised ability descriptions for Multi Shot and Prey

- Curses will now scale based on difficulty. Easier curses will be activated during the beginning of Cursed mode while harder curses will not activate until the player has survived a theshold of curses

- Curse: Under Fire - Arrow Barrage will now only collides with the player and not the environment

- Bug fix: Ranger will no longer toggle kiting mode when closing cursed altar UI

- Bug Fix: Flesh Golem should no longer spawn 2 boss souls on death

- Bug Fix: Player can no longer skip from level 1 to level 3

- Refactored XP Gain code

- Bug Fix: Fixed an issue where UI panels could overlap if activated within the same frame or a very similar timeframe of each other

- Bug Fix: Ranger will now toggle kiting mode when standing still or moving only vertical

- Bug Fix: Bogatyr's Talent for Defense Bonus was not adding properly. Fixed

- Bug Fix: Grub enemy in Linden Forest will now properly sort sprite order against other enemies in the scene

- Linden Forest: Vine Traps will now deactivate if within the vicinity of a spawned altar or challenge circle

- Code refactoring


Thank you for all of your support. If you have any questions, comments, bug reports or suggestions please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

Stingbot

Hi Everyone,

This week's update improves a lot of minor things, and Build 0.5.16 adds a new feature: Cursed Altars. The spawn logic of cursed altars will likely change in future updates. These new altars are one of many new events planned for the game to spice up early gameplay. We will be adding lots of new events to the game which offer different types of challenges and rewards. Expect more soon!



Engaging with 3 of these altars will reward you with a new achievement, so check it out!

[h2]Full Patch Notes:[/h2]

- New Altar: Cursed Altar. Discover it and see if you've got what it takes to reap the rewards!

- New Achievement: Activate 3 Curse Altars

- XP will now carry over to the next level on level up

- An outline has been added to elites to improve visibility and identify them easier

- When enemies take poison damage over time they now have a custom shader effect applied to them to improve the visibility of the effect



- Ranger: When closing the Merchant Window, the toggle to switch between kiting mode and regular movement will no longer be triggered

- Ranger: When closing the Sacrifice Altar Window, the toggle to switch between kiting mode and regular movement will no longer be triggered

- Bug Fix: Treasure Map chest will no longer be deactivated when starting a boss fight in Usvit Depths

- Ranger Bug Fix: Burst Shot damage calculation was off. It was boosting the attack multiplier by +1 every shot, which eventualy resulted in insanely high damage. Fixed this, sorry no more OP burst shot.

- Increased base enemy move speed by 9%

- Linden Forest: Decreased hitbox size for the following enemies: Grub, Worm

- Reduced the gold reward for the Treasure Map item

- Bug Fix: Toast notification that Bilee has spawned will now properly display

- Bug Fix: Force Trigger necklace was not properly storing collider references


Next week we are planning to add at least 1 more new event to the game, along with a host of other QoL improvements and tweaks.

We have shifted our main focus to the development of Castle Usvit, but we will continue to push out QoL improvements and new builds as often as we can.

Next week we'll have some other news about the future of the game, so stay posted!

Thank you for your support. If anyone has any questions, feedback, bug reports, or anything else, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Stingbot

[h2]MERCHANT[/h2]

A traveling merchant from a distant land has arrived, and he brings a trove of mysterious and powerful items for you to purchase and use.

Meet Likho, the Traveling Merchant:



Likho currently has a variety of common and uncommon items available to purchase. Likho will be available from the start of the game, but he is not designed to be used with new players as the cost of his items may be too high initially. Like the Talents System, the merchant will enhance the player's abilities and set them up for a chance at a great run, so saving up Gold to purchase items could be a good strategy. We've even introduced a new way to acquire large amounts of gold, and more on that below.





Likho will appear at roughly 5 and 15 minutes in every run. You will be notified and must seek him out to browse his wares and boost your powers. He sells everything from basic stat boosters and re rolls, to more unique and rare items not seen in the game world anywhere else.

For instance, he may offer you a Nightmare Cloak, which boosts your Damage by 60%, however the cloak will cast a curse on you. But if you've got the skills and you can afford the cost of the item, the reward could most certainly outweigh the risk.

Then you have items like the Treasure Map. If you purchase the map you will be directed to find 3 treasure chests, with each chest holding more gold than the last. The cost of the map will run you 400 gold, but the reward can set you up for many runs if you find all 3 chests.



This is only the beginning of the Merchant System. As we continue development we will introduce Rare, Class Specific items that Likho will sell to you, as well as add to his pool of common and uncommon items.

[h2]COMING SOON: HARD MODE[/h2]

The Merchant will become a very crucial part of the core gameplay loop as we continue further in development. We are designing a Hard Mode that we anticipate to be live in Linden Forest before the end of July. Once you complete a stage on the regular difficulty, you will unlock a new, harder variant of that stage. With the new version will come a variety of changes including changes to existing enemies and behaviors, new encounters, new environment hazards and a new boss. If you want to become a true Soul Survivor, then Hard Mode will be your ultimate test. Here's a preview of a new boss coming to Linden Forest. Meet the Spore King, a giant Mushroom Shaman King who commands a fierce fungal army:



We've also patched a bunch of things in this update (0.5.14)

[h2]PATCH NOTES[/h2]

- Save Data: refactored code and added extra failsafes to notify player if corrupted data was detected. New data will now be automatically created, to avoid causing bugged behaviour during gameplay. The player will also be notified that their file was corrupted, and if you would like us to send you a new file with custom data, we can do so.

- Changed Save File extension in Steam Cloud setup

- Ranger: Refactored and improved code for Arrow Volley ability

- Ranger: Reset default movement mode to kiting, but toggle remains unchanged

- Modified the damage text positioning above Bosses to improve readability

- Modified and Optimized damage text again, boosting performance by a small margin

- Bug Fix: Ranger Explosive Trap counts will now reset when entering Autlaic and Velya boss fights, to ensure max traps can be laid during the fights

- Reduced the Base CDR for passive cooldown from 5% to 4% per rank. Ashendusk Powder (sold by the merchant) will boost this to 7% per rank.

- Enemy damage text will now only be activated if the enemy is on screen within the camera view

- Bug Fix: fixed an issue with destructibles in Usvit Depths not rendering the fully destroyed sprite and leaving the shadow active

- Bug Fix: Ember Particles on level up screen now disply and position properly

- Bug Fix: Ranger Explosive Traps will no longer be set off by Velya's Blue fireballs during the boss fight in Usvit Depths

- Bug Fix: 1 million soul achievement will now update

- Code refactoring


Finally, next week we'll also be making some changes on Steam Cloud after we can verify some things in the Cloud. This will be a silent update on the backend as we verify the code is working.

As always, thank you for everyone's support as we continue development on Soul Survivors. There's a lot more to come, and if you have any feedback, requests, suggestions for ways to improve the game, or bug reports, please don't hesitate to reach out. We appreciate the feedback and we strive to improve the game in each and every update.

Stingbot